Its been nearly a month now since Tendulkar announced his retirement from one-day internationals but I don't think its fully sunk in for me that I won't ever see him walk out to open the batting again in the India blues. Even though my first foray into following cricket was the fifty over world cup in 1987, I soon got hooked onto Test match cricket and have never really felt as passionately for the limited overs format since. Since the 1990s, one-day cricket (except World Cups) for me has always been more about following my favourite cricketers and how they perform and Tendulkar has always been in the top three in that list. The numbers of course are awe-inspiring but what's more staggering is the consistency with which he kept churning them out over such a long period. To average nearly 45 over 463 matches boggles the mind to a degree I wouldn't have imagined possible. 463 matches. In terms of days of cricket, that equates to over 90 Test matches. The next closest (